The challenge is the optimization of operations and electricity market participation for a VPP comprising a thermal unit, such as a conventional gas-fired power plant, a wind farm and a pumped storage hydro unit for energy storage. Credit: Xavier Pita A scheme to balance risks may help realize the benefits of being able to combine complementary power technologies, such as thermal generation, wind power and energy storage. Such benefits include lower capital costs and more responsive and reliable energy delivery…

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a miniature, ultra-low power injectable biosensor that could be used for continuous, long-term alcohol monitoring. The chip is small enough to be implanted in the body just beneath the surface of the skin and is powered wirelessly by a wearable device, such as a smartwatch or patch. “The ultimate goal of this work is to develop a routine, unobtrusive alcohol and drug monitoring device for patients in substance abuse treatment…

When you plug in an appliance or flip on a light switch, electricity seems to flow instantly through wires in the wall. But in fact, the electricity is carried by tiny particles called electrons that slowly drift through the wires. On their journey, electrons occasionally bump into the material’s atoms, giving up some energy with every collision. The degree to which electrons travel unhindered determines how well a material can conduct electricity. Environmental changes can enhance conductivity, in some cases…

Credit: University of Twente The University of Twente is currently developing a smartphone technology based on the usage of Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) and augmented reality (AR). This technology enables medical personnel to reconstruct 3-D body sections quickly, only by holding the smartphone around the area of interest. This smartphone will display the augmented layers of the 3-D skin surface in order to visualize invisible information for medical personnel. “We would like to layer the information from the MRI…

One of four elderly persons falls every year in the United States. With more than 37 million hospitalizations every year, roughly one million falls occur in hospitals and can lead to serious injury and even death. Patients often fall while trying to get out of bed or when they walk for longer than they are able. Nurses can’t constantly monitor individual patients because of the number of patients they attend to. Sensors can continuously monitor patients, but many only detect…

A Purdue-affiliated company is developing a new time and cost effective software technology that could offer a more efficient and realistic way to model and simulate light emitting diodes (LEDs) in order to achieve more powerful and more efficient LED light sources often used in general lighting, automobile lighting and consumer electronics. Tillmann Kubis, a research assistant professor, and Gerhard Klimeck, a professor, both in Purdue’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, in Purdue’s Network for Computational Nanotechnology and Purdue’s…

The Ivorian Electricity Company (CIE) is using drones to revolutionise the inspection of its infrastructure “Drones have become my passion,” says Noursely Doumbia, who holds a degree in electronics and is currently learning to pilot drones as part of a pioneering programme in Ivory Coast’s economic capital Abidjan. The training is being offered at a new “drone academy” which has been set up by the Ivorian Electricity Company (CIE) in order to revolutionise the inspection of its infrastructure and ultimately…

Six high-voltage lines are due to be taken down in Valais canton. Credit: Swissgrid For his Master’s project, Joseph Desruelle devised a plan to reuse steel bars from dismantled electricity pylons to make a new roof for the Lausanne train station. This approach is still theoretical, but reusing materials in this way could one day become commonplace. For his Master’s project in civil engineering, Joseph Desruelle came up with a project to count and classify thousands of steel bars from…

This sensor can detect methane at much lower concentrations than current ones. It relies on nanotechnology developed at the Center for Nanoscale Materials, an Office of Science user facility. The human nose can distinguish among a trillion different combinations of smells. Even so, there are plenty of gases that our noses can’t detect at the level of sensitivity we need. That’s where gaseous sensors come in. While some of the first sensors were animals – like canaries in coal mines…